5 ms·

I will fill in the vagueness of your "vote different" statement with specifics of my own: progressive, redistributive policies that radically reduce inequality

I will fill in the vagueness of your "vote different" statement with specifics of my own: progressive, redistributive policies that radically reduce inequality and that gives a controlling portion of the influence that currently sits with capital owners to the general public. Tax rich people, use the money to steamroll their NIMBYism, and build dense housing and public infrastructure that supports a healthy and sustainable economy, in opposition to the status quo which incentivizes people to steal and behave antisocially because there is no hope of "making it." This does indeed involve kicking much of the moderate Democratic establishment out.

alex_sf 4y ago
"What if we took money from the people that have provably used it to create more value and instead gave it to drug addicts who shit on the sidewalk? I know SF already spends 100k/yr per homeless resident, but we really need to push that up." This whole line of thought is absurd, you're in a bubble.
- speakfreely 4y ago
  "The patient is not improving. Let's keep doubling the chemo until we see improvement."
- artsytrashcan 4y ago
  "Value."
  - amanaplanacanal 4y ago
    I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.
    - alex_sf 4y ago
      You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.
      - oefnak 4y ago
        No no no! Ads are terrible! Marketing is lying! If there were no ads, people would judge based on the quality of products, instead of being manipulated to buy things. I obviously block ads. I understand that lots of things would cost money that currently are free, but many things would still be free. The old internet consisted mainly of free things and was not infested with ads. Please, tell me one positive effect that ads have on society as a whole. (So not for you personally, because I know they make money)
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    Again, this is your bubble talking. Look around you, and compare your life to any human 50 years ago, or anyone outside a first world country today. You are outrageously privileged entirely because of that very real value generated.
    - artsytrashcan 4y ago
      The vast majority of the net value present in my life compared to a like individual from 50 years ago is attributable to 1) gay and black civil rights advocates, 2) university researchers, and 3) Japanese and Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers, in that order. I can also confirm that there are millions of Chinese and Indians living better than me, if only because their countries have a functional (if corrupt) college-placement-test-score-to-comfortable-employment pipeline. As for bubbles, I would hazard that your accusation is a confession.
      - alex_sf 4y ago
        Your evaluation of yourself and your position in the world is apparently solely informed by what Twitter tells you to think and the availability of gadgets around you. And clearly not informed by ever actually having visited China or India, or having formed any significant friendships with people there. To think the 3rd most significant source of value in your life is cheap microcontrollers is.. wild. Indoor plumbing? Refrigeration? A health department that ensures you aren't eating food fried in gutter oil? You are taking these entirely for granted, because everyone has those, right? This is a great example of what privilege actually is. Let's make this simpler for you. Your original proposal is that, of course, the wealthy (read: anyone that makes more than you) have too much, the homeless have too little. So, like a child faced with this problem, you surmise we should take things from the wealthy and give them to the poor. SF spends $100,000 per year, per homeless resident, on 'fixing homelessness'. Exactly how much more should they be spending, and why would that change anything?
        ESTheComposer 4y ago
        Good luck, this kind of logic doesn't seem to work too much with people who don't think too far ahead about the economics or don't want to think too much about it. Throwing more money at things usually doesn't solve it and taking it from others for reasons(?) doesn't either. Had someone like this tell me Venezuelans should be supporting Democratic candidates...like what. A country whose people are so poor a lot of them wonder what they're going to eat next should be focusing on another country's politicians?
pas 4y ago
Law enforcement is underfunded (compared to the prevalence of crime) and mismanaged (low standards, low accountability, etc). Even if you solve housing (NIMBYism, slow permitting process, low-density zoning) crime won't solve itself. (Because organized crime fits in its niche, and doesn't want to give it up. And it'd require changes of federal law to move it.)
- artsytrashcan 4y ago
  >(Because organized crime fits in its niche, and doesn't want to give it up. And it'd require changes of federal law to move it.) This is an interesting wrinkle. I would hope that addressing the corruption that enables NIMBYism would also affect the viability of organized crime. I disagree that law enforcement is underfunded. Public services which would reduce the prevalence of crime are absolutely underfunded; law enforcement is not one of those services, as it currently receives enough funding (and more) to carry out its part in crime-lowering efforts. Fixing its mismanagement means funding separate institutions dedicated to oversight, for example.
  - pas 4y ago
    Drug laws would need to change first before any dent in organized crime. And there's still sex work, and good old influence peddling, etc. And then still there's a long way to go with immigration reform. (Undocumented immigrants are a very vulnerable and lucrative victim group. From human trafficking to no-contract cash-only jobs, the classic sweatshop model, and more.) At this point, I'm fairly certain that it's a pipe dream to assume that it's possible to "fix it" without serious sustained effort (which costs some money obviously) and without also drastically improving the adjacent systems (as you said also). Sure, we can call it social services, but the goal is to really reduce both crime and police brutality. It's a complex problem, but very simply the funding issue is that militarization was cheap (because military handed off a lot of things for cheap/free), and any and all social service thing got more expensive simply due to big "external" factors like the Baumol effect (human labor is relatively getting more expensive compared to anything that benefits from capital investment, ie. industrialization, mass production, technological progress), the Southern Strategy culminated, War on Drugs revved up, social polarization increased, inequality shoot up, these all led to more crime, more tough-on-crime programs, more people in the criminal justice system, and that's a lot more expensive. And of course reintegration and related social programs got worse for the same reasons. See also https://www.slowboring.com/p/fixing-the-police-will-take-more https://www.slowboring.com/p/fixing-the-police-will-take-mor...
kortilla 4y ago
Care to provide an example of where this policy has worked?

alex_sf 4y ago

"What if we took money from the people that have provably used it to create more value and instead gave it to drug addicts who shit on the sidewalk? I know SF already spends 100k/yr per homeless resident, but we really need to push that up." This whole line of thought is absurd, you're in a bubble.

speakfreely 4y ago
"The patient is not improving. Let's keep doubling the chemo until we see improvement."
artsytrashcan 4y ago
"Value."
- amanaplanacanal 4y ago
  I’m sure all those ads have made my life better, somehow.
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    You are literally reading and posting on an ad for Y Combinator. Everything that you use every day that you don't pay for is a direct result of ads. Yes, they definitely have made your life better.
    - oefnak 4y ago
      No no no! Ads are terrible! Marketing is lying! If there were no ads, people would judge based on the quality of products, instead of being manipulated to buy things. I obviously block ads. I understand that lots of things would cost money that currently are free, but many things would still be free. The old internet consisted mainly of free things and was not infested with ads. Please, tell me one positive effect that ads have on society as a whole. (So not for you personally, because I know they make money)
- alex_sf 4y ago
  Again, this is your bubble talking. Look around you, and compare your life to any human 50 years ago, or anyone outside a first world country today. You are outrageously privileged entirely because of that very real value generated.
  - artsytrashcan 4y ago
    The vast majority of the net value present in my life compared to a like individual from 50 years ago is attributable to 1) gay and black civil rights advocates, 2) university researchers, and 3) Japanese and Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers, in that order. I can also confirm that there are millions of Chinese and Indians living better than me, if only because their countries have a functional (if corrupt) college-placement-test-score-to-comfortable-employment pipeline. As for bubbles, I would hazard that your accusation is a confession.
    - alex_sf 4y ago
      Your evaluation of yourself and your position in the world is apparently solely informed by what Twitter tells you to think and the availability of gadgets around you. And clearly not informed by ever actually having visited China or India, or having formed any significant friendships with people there. To think the 3rd most significant source of value in your life is cheap microcontrollers is.. wild. Indoor plumbing? Refrigeration? A health department that ensures you aren't eating food fried in gutter oil? You are taking these entirely for granted, because everyone has those, right? This is a great example of what privilege actually is. Let's make this simpler for you. Your original proposal is that, of course, the wealthy (read: anyone that makes more than you) have too much, the homeless have too little. So, like a child faced with this problem, you surmise we should take things from the wealthy and give them to the poor. SF spends $100,000 per year, per homeless resident, on 'fixing homelessness'. Exactly how much more should they be spending, and why would that change anything?
      - ESTheComposer 4y ago
        Good luck, this kind of logic doesn't seem to work too much with people who don't think too far ahead about the economics or don't want to think too much about it. Throwing more money at things usually doesn't solve it and taking it from others for reasons(?) doesn't either. Had someone like this tell me Venezuelans should be supporting Democratic candidates...like what. A country whose people are so poor a lot of them wonder what they're going to eat next should be focusing on another country's politicians?

pas 4y ago

Law enforcement is underfunded (compared to the prevalence of crime) and mismanaged (low standards, low accountability, etc). Even if you solve housing (NIMBYism, slow permitting process, low-density zoning) crime won't solve itself. (Because organized crime fits in its niche, and doesn't want to give it up. And it'd require changes of federal law to move it.)

artsytrashcan 4y ago
>(Because organized crime fits in its niche, and doesn't want to give it up. And it'd require changes of federal law to move it.) This is an interesting wrinkle. I would hope that addressing the corruption that enables NIMBYism would also affect the viability of organized crime. I disagree that law enforcement is underfunded. Public services which would reduce the prevalence of crime are absolutely underfunded; law enforcement is not one of those services, as it currently receives enough funding (and more) to carry out its part in crime-lowering efforts. Fixing its mismanagement means funding separate institutions dedicated to oversight, for example.
- pas 4y ago
  Drug laws would need to change first before any dent in organized crime. And there's still sex work, and good old influence peddling, etc. And then still there's a long way to go with immigration reform. (Undocumented immigrants are a very vulnerable and lucrative victim group. From human trafficking to no-contract cash-only jobs, the classic sweatshop model, and more.) At this point, I'm fairly certain that it's a pipe dream to assume that it's possible to "fix it" without serious sustained effort (which costs some money obviously) and without also drastically improving the adjacent systems (as you said also). Sure, we can call it social services, but the goal is to really reduce both crime and police brutality. It's a complex problem, but very simply the funding issue is that militarization was cheap (because military handed off a lot of things for cheap/free), and any and all social service thing got more expensive simply due to big "external" factors like the Baumol effect (human labor is relatively getting more expensive compared to anything that benefits from capital investment, ie. industrialization, mass production, technological progress), the Southern Strategy culminated, War on Drugs revved up, social polarization increased, inequality shoot up, these all led to more crime, more tough-on-crime programs, more people in the criminal justice system, and that's a lot more expensive. And of course reintegration and related social programs got worse for the same reasons. See also https://www.slowboring.com/p/fixing-the-police-will-take-more https://www.slowboring.com/p/fixing-the-police-will-take-mor...

kortilla 4y ago

Care to provide an example of where this policy has worked?